Press Play: Grateful Dead's 'Lost Tapes' on 'Dave's Picks 6'

David Lemieux, the Grateful Dead archivist and the Dave behind "Dave's Picks 6," calls this three-CD set "the lost tapes." That's because they were missing for more than 40 years, surfacing in July when the ex-wife of a former Dead roadie found them when she was packing up her house in North Carolina.

Lemieux, who gets offers of tapes all the time that turn out to be nothing much, quickly realized that these 16 reels were indeed extraordinary. They're from shows at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium in December 1969 and the Fox Theatre in St. Louis in February 1970, the transitional period, according to Lemieux, when the band was evolving from psychedelic warriors into the era of melodic country rock a la "Working Man's Dead," which would be recorded in the spring of 1970.

The band had some reels from these shows in its vault, but they were incomplete, without even set lists to document the missing music. With these tapes, the shows are now complete.

"As an archivist, it's incredibly exciting to get things back," Lemieux said in a recent interview at Bob Weir's TRI Studios in San Rafael. "As a Deadhead, to hear music that nobody's heard before is really exciting."

At first, since the tapes had been stored in attics and garages for decades, Lemieux worried about the sound quality.

"I thought they might sound like mush, but they were in perfect shape," he said. "They sound ridiculously clean. It's incredible clean music. We already had the other half of the shows, so instantly I knew we were going to get a CD out of this."

What makes this package a real gem is the strong presence of keyboardist, soul singer and legendary character Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who would die three years later at his home in Corte Madera. Sounding remarkably like Mick Jagger, he's showcased on two renditions of his signature "Turn on Your Lovelight." One goes on for more than 35 minutes.

The Dead played "New Speedway Boogie," a song inspired by the infamous Altamont concert, for the first time at these concerts. Remarkably, it was just two weeks after that disaster.

"The Lost Tapes" are the first major return of missing material since the so-called "Houseboat Tapes" in 2005. To ensure that it becomes a collector's item, Rhino Entertainment has limited "Dave's Picks 6" to 13,000 individually numbered copies. Sorry to say, they sold out instantly after they were released on May 1.

"To be able to get something this good that nobody's heard is rare," Lemieux said. "I thought it would happen once in a lifetime. But it seems to happen every seven years."

— Paul Liberatore

If you're a musician or band from Marin with an album or EP that readers can buy or download and want to be reviewed, send your CD and contact information, (if you have an upcoming gig, let us know that, too) to Press Play, 4000 Civic Center Drive, Suite 301, San Rafael, CA 94903.